Jolene Chevalier is a refugee from an alternate possible future now stranded decades in the past. She is a former Ferryman and freedom-fighter who has retired to civilian life after serious injury.

portrayed by
Susan Coffey

Jolene Petrelli was born in a future that will never be, the daughter of Peter Petrelli and Gillian Childs. Born into a wasteland ruled by the corrupt remnants of the American government, she and a handful of her friends traveled back in time in order to prevent the future they came from and save the lives of their families. Arriving in the year 2011, she insinuated herself with Redbird Security Solutions to keep a close eye on Richard Cardinal and his cohorts.

Jolene and her friends' actions resulted in the destruction of the Institute, the collapse of the DoEA, and quite likely the early onset of the Second American Civil War and the events that led to the death of her father. The weight of responsibility didn't hit Jolene until the riots turned into fighting, and the surviving friends and family she traveled back with saw the writing on the wall. Possessed of a sense of duty and responsibility for the future she's helped create, Jolene joined the war she was too young to participate in when it happened in her timeline.

In the initial onset of the war Jolene stayed with her mother and served in the same role as a military artillery support, working in concert with other Evolved to break armored columns and into hardened bunkers. Gillian's amplification of Jolene's power allowed her daughter to far exceed her normal ability limitations, in many ways able to emulate her father's original empathic mimicry by holding on to Evolved abilities after they had left her radius so long as she was augmented.

From 2012 to 2013 Jolene thew herself into the most hazardous conflicts in the war, becoming increasingly concerned that she as her companions had not prevented the wasteland they escaped but ensured its creation. Against Gillian's wishes, Jolene joined a Resistance strike intending to destroy a Mitchell-regime command bunker. During this attack the US military unleashed a biological weapon against the strike force, modified Advent Virus based on research stolen from the Institute before its collapse. The resulting biological agent had a 98% lethality rate resulting in massive cellular degeneration in non-Evolved targets and catastrophic nerve damage in Evolved targets. Jolene was among the handful of survivors of the horrific attack.

Jolene spent the next nine months in recovery from the viral attack after being evacuated across the Canadian border to Toronto. The viral attack caused permanent nerve damage in her right side, causing her to suffer from loss of mobility in her right arm and right leg and a significant loss of vision in her right eye. The nerve damage was coupled with a genetic degradation that resulted in the loss of her ability to manifest her ability ever again.

From 2013 to 2016 Jolene moved in with her mother and underwent extensive physical therapy to regain limited motor control in her right arm and leg but requires mobility aids to walk and cannot drive. She is also nearly blind in her right eye. Due to her lacking any legitimate social identity she refused to testify in the Albany Trials for fear of outing herself or her close friends as time travelers. Jolene has kept that secret close to her chest and has continued to operate — legally — under her falsified identity of Jolene Chevalier.

Jolene sank into a deep depression in the years following the war, rudderless and without purpose for the first time in her young life. In peacetime she found herself not knowing how to properly reintegrate into society. It took the efforts of her mother and close friends like Ingrid (whom she holds complicated, unspoken feelings for) to push her back into activity.

In the Fall of 2017, with the guidance of her friends, Jolene began a GED program at Brooklyn College to fill in the gaps in her education from growing up in a war-torn wasteland. At Brooklyn College she met and befriended Martin Pines and offered to lend a hand helping him get a radio station up and running within the Safe Zone, volunteering as WSZR in Elmhurst between classes.

Jolene was once a carefree person wth a charming, upbeat attitude. Since the death of her father, loss of her ability, and her loss of mobility has had deleterious effects on her mental health. Jolene suffers from chronic depression and often does not properly care for herself. She struggles to find motivation for even basic tasks and is struggling to maintain her GED program. Her interest in radio and WSZR is the only hobby she's found that keeps her motivated.

Jolene Petrelli once had the ability to identify, mimic, and control the powers of Evolved within 30 feet of her. Since her exposure to a degenerative biological weapon during the civil war, she no longer has access to her ability — though still presents the Suresh Linkage Complex on genetic testing.

Appendices

Jolene was trained how to fire handguns and single-action rifles while in the Wasteland. Since suffering nerve damage from a biological weapon attack she is unable to fire a two-handed firearm and is a poor shot with her non-dominant hand with a handgun.

Jolene knows basic first aid, though her limited physical mobility prevents her from being able to perform some tasks.

Jolene is an accomplished liar and is excellent at assessing another person's intentions and manipulating them. She honed this ability in the wasteland and utilized it to its full extent while working at Redbird Security under her assumed identity. Jolene is also a charismatic public speaker.

Thanks to her volunteer position at WSZR, Jolene has learned basic radio operations and a loose understanding of the ins and outs of radio hardware maintenance.

Jolene knows how to find and evaluate salvage, another wasteland skill. This ability has little usefulness in the modern world save for occasionally scavenging for radio components.

Jolene knows how to play an acoustic guitar with moderate skill, but she can no longer play due to her nerve damage.